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MARY’S MUSINGS | The Memories Will Never Fade

I struggle to go to Cornell. It is an ongoing battle, and while I have made leaps and bounds, sometimes I can only wish that I had transferred. Freshman year, I wasn’t strong enough to ask for help and just wanted to push myself through the pain, through the memories and just get on with my life. I wish that after everything that happened – after the charges were pressed after my first year – I had moved away.

Instead, I deal with the pain of walking to campus and passing by the three houses where I saw the monster in Collegetown the first time my friends convinced me to go out freshman year: he saw me and just stared. I walk by Uris Library and instead of seeing the cool Harry Potter-like features, I see where it all began. When I am at the slope, I see him walking beside me – asking and persisting to have sex. I hear myself say no; that I have a 10-page paper to write. West Campus is my nightmare; Keeton House makes my heart beat faster. North Campus dining halls bring back the few times that he came in. Though I luckily saw him there only a couple of times, they left their mark. This is my pain. This is what I deal with when I come back. Each break, I struggle because Cornell isn’t my home – it’s a constant reminder of what happened. The memories will never fade; they just get a little distant with time.

I have only a couple of faculty members who I willingly talk to and trust. How can I put my faith in Cornell when the faculty fought for him to stay and pushed against the sexual assault charges? I understand that it was their job and that everyone deserves a fair trial (innocent before proven guilty and all that), but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt that someone was defending him without seeing the pain he put me through. I don’t usually talk to professors outside of class because they terrify me. They remind me of the pain. They remind me that the university I worked hard to get into defended him. I don’t feel safe talking to any of them about assignments, anything I need clarifications on or possible extensions because I had a trigger and couldn’t focus on work. This impacts my grades. Is it irrational and unfair to put this on all faculty members? Yes. I know that, but it’s difficult for me to trust. It’s difficult to put that pain behind me.

So how do I handle going to Cornell? I remind myself of the friends I made here that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Yes, something traumatic happened to me, and while I don’t consider Cornell my home away from home, my friends are that home for me. They help me and they make me want to be a better person. These friends are the ones you know will last beyond these four years. Sometimes I wish that I had transferred from Cornell, but I remind myself that I wouldn’t have the friends that I do now. Sometimes your nightmares can give rise to something beautiful.

Mary is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. On campus she is involved with the Every1 Campaign and is in a sorority. She loves reading, watching The Office and Friends and geeking out about Disney and The Lord of the Rings. Olaf the snowman is her spirit animal. Mary’s Musings appears on alternate Wednesdays this semester. She can be reached at meb367@cornell.edu.